Monthly Archives: February 2017

In a preview of The Public Square, forthcoming in the March issue of First Things, editor R.R. Reno refers to an argument by Sherman Jackson. Dr. Jackson is the King Faisal Chair of Islamic Thought and Culture, and Professor of Religion and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California (USC).

‘In his 2005 book, Islam and the Blackamerican, ­Jackson makes a case for Muslim endorsement of the American political system and its “liberal-pluralist vision.” (…) Needless to say, Islam is opposed to liberal pluralism as obligatory cultural ideal—as are orthodox Christianity and Judaism. But liberal pluralism can refer to something more modest, a political system and civic tradition that recognize the limits of law and accord room for dissent and deviance. (…)

Sherman Jackson is an influential voice in the Muslim American community, and his endorsement of liberal-­pluralist constitutionalism resists Islamic extremism that poses as religious integrity and helps Muslims in the United States to affirm our way of life, which their natural sympathies incline them to do. Which is why I do not regard Islam as a “problem” in the United States.’

My forthcoming book points to liberal pluralism as a plausible model to manage diversity in a postsecular society. It also raises the question in this context, if and to what extent Christian pluralist theory differs from liberal pluralism in a practical sense, although differences remain at the theoretical level. What is more, although grounded at least in part in Christian theology, liberal pluralism is in a sense also remarkably similar to constitutional lawyer Asifa Quraishi-Landes’s account of Islamic constitutionalism inspired by classical, premodern, Islamic regimes.

This is the seventh post in a new series introducing my forthcoming book on Constitutionalism, Democracy and Religious Freedom. To be Fully Human (Routledge, 2017).

Posted onFebruary 18, 2017|Comments Off on Michael Wear’s Reclaiming Hope (2017): ‘Learn How the Seeds of the Trump Presidency Were Sown in the Obama White House’

‘In this unvarnished account of faith inside the world’s most powerful office, Michael Wear provides unprecedented insight into the highs and lows of working as a Christian in government. Reclaiming Hope is an insider’s view of the most controversial episodes of the Obama administration, from the president’s change of position on gay marriage and the transformation of religious freedom into a partisan idea, to the administration’s failure to find common ground on abortion and the bitter controversy over who would give the benediction at the 2012 inauguration.’

The thing that without doubt has struck me most during my fellowship is how relatively fast and comprehensively the right to freedom of religion or belief has indeed already come under pressure across the West, at least in theory. It is difficult to give a single and clear-cut explanation for this. One important factor is without doubt the political polarisation that has come to be associated with religious freedom. Thus, Democrats blame Republicans for claiming a near-monopoly with respect to the right to freedom of religion or belief, thereby interpreting it in a conservative manner when it comes to topics such as same-sex marriage. On their part, as they themselves would be the first to admit, the Obama administration has not always dealt in a sensitive manner with issues regarding the inclusion of abortion and anticonception in the healthcare legislation it has introduced.

This is the sixth post in a new series introducing my forthcoming book on Constitutionalism, Democracy and Religious Freedom. To be Fully Human (Routledge, 2017).

Posted onFebruary 11, 2017|Comments Off on Major New Report by the National Secular Society: Rethinking Religion and Belief in Public Life

‘The report says that Britain’s “drift away from Christianity” coupled with the rise in minority religions and increasing non-religiosity demands a “long term, sustainable settlement on the relationship between religion and the state”.

Rethinking religion and belief in public life: a manifesto for change has been sent to all MPs as part of a major drive by the Society to encourage policymakers and citizens of all faiths and none to find common cause in promoting principles of secularism.

It calls for Britain to evolve into a secular democracy with a clear separation between religion and state and criticises the prevailing multi-faithist approach as being “at odds with the increasing religious indifference” in Britain.

Terry Sanderson, National Secular Society president, said: “Vast swathes of the population are simply not interested in religion, it doesn’t play a part in their lives, but the state refuses to recognise this. Britain is now one of the most religiously diverse and, at the same time, non-religious nations in the world. Rather than burying its head in the sand, the state needs to respond to these fundamental cultural changes. Our report sets out constructive and specific proposals to fundamentally reform the role of religion in public life to ensure that every citizen can be treated fairly and valued equally, irrespective of their religious outlook.”‘

In my forthcoming book I write that it is not just meant for readers who could be expected to sympathise with some or all of the theoretical starting points set out in the introduction, but also as a modest invitation precisely to dissenters to engage in a “respectful academic conversation” similar to what Founding Director of the Center for Christian Studies at Gordon College (now the Center for Faith and Inquiry) Harold Heie calls a “respectful political conversation”. Should this not, or no longer, be possible, then it will also prove difficult to uphold the ideal of a pluralistic public square as part of one’s democracy conception, as advocated in the book.

This is the fifth post in a new series introducing my forthcoming book on Constitutionalism, Democracy and Religious Freedom. To be Fully Human (Routledge, 2017).

Posted onFebruary 4, 2017|Comments Off on Symposium on Christian Democracy and America: ‘Can Christian Democracy Be America’s Next European Import?’

The latest issue of the Journal Perspectives on Political Science (Vol. 46, 2017, nr. 1) contains a symposium on Christian Democracy and America.

The abstract of the introduction to the symposium, authored by Hunter Baker, reads as follows:

‘The confluence of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision on gay marriage and the unusual nature of the 2016 U.S. presidential election presents American Christians with significant political questions. Obergefell’s elevation of gay marriage to the status of a constitutional civil right put U.S. law and Christian orthodoxy at loggerheads, thereby raising serious issues with regard to the continued ability of religious organizations to participate in the not-for-profit sector and in higher education. At the same time, the nationalistic turn of the the Republican party under Donald Trump generated dissonance with Christian views of human solidarity. The new situation seems to shift the landscape of American politics and raises the possibility of new alternatives. Contributors to this symposium were asked to evaluate the prospects for an Americanized version of European Christian Democracy. While they generated a diversity of opinion about Christian Democracy, the group pragmatically recognized the many obstacles in place. Some argued against the idea because of reservations about associating the Christian faith with the coerciveness of law. Others noted the proven virtues of such parties in Europe. This article interacts with the different responses and makes a case for why Christian Democracy might have a brighter future in the U.S. than many believe. The primary reason is that Christian Democracy emerged in response to aggressive secularism in Europe’s past that may only be reaching similar levels in the U.S. today. Therefore, a new political movement with similarities to Christian Democracy might make sense in the American context.’

A central tenet of my forthcoming book is that both the questions surrounding the right to freedom of religion or belief and those surrounding constitutionalism and democracy can generally best be addressed by seeking guidance from the theory of social pluralism. At least three views of social pluralism can be distinguished: what could be called an argument from history (Edmund Burke, Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, Otto von Gierke, John Neville Figgis); the recent Catholic tradition (Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius XI, Jacques Maritain, Bishops of the Second Vatican Council); and progressive Calvinism (Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd, H. Evan Runner, Bernard J. Zylstra).

This is the fourth post in a new series introducing my forthcoming book on Constitutionalism, Democracy and Religious Freedom. To be Fully Human (Routledge, 2017).

About me

Hans-Martien ten Napel, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where he is also Research Fellow of the Leiden Law School and Affiliated Member of the Center for the Study of Political Parties and Representation. In addition, he is a Member of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research. Before his transfer to the law faculty, he taught at a Department of Political Science and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA).

He teaches the Bachelor of Laws elective course on the Law of Democracy and a Master of Laws elective course on Comparative Constitutional Law and served as a coach on the extracurricular Leiden Leadership Programme. In addition, he is currently co-supervising three Ph.D. projects.

In 2014 he was awarded a Research Fellowship in Legal Studies at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, NJ, which enabled him to be in full-time residence at CTI for the academic year 2014-2015. In 2017 he received a ‘seed money grant for frontier research’ from the Leiden profile area Interaction Between Legal Systems.

His work has appeared in European Constitutional Law Review, European Public Law, Journal of Interreligious Studies, Journal of Markets and Morality, Muslim World Journal of Human Rights and Oxford Journal of Law and Religion. He was also co-editor and co-author of two recent volumes, Regulating Political Parties: European Democracies in Comparative Perspective (2014) and The Powers That Be. Rethinking the Separation of Powers (2015).

Since 2015, he is a member of the editorial board of the Tijdschrift voor Religie, Recht en Beleid(Journal of Religion, Law, and Policy). In 2017, he published, as the fruit of his research fellowship, the monograph Constitutionalism, Democracy and Religious Freedom. To Be Fully Human (Routledge).

‘Abstract As Smith points out, the genealogy of liberal democracy demonstrates that liberalism is nothing less than the prodigal son of Christianity. Thus, it becomes plausible that Christianity has a continuing role to play in a liberal democracy. Smith might … Continue reading →

On 6-7 June 2019, I will be participating in the above conference. My presentation is entitled ‘The Codification of an Expanding Number of Human Rights and the Ideal of Self-Government.’ During the presentation, I will, among other things, discuss the … Continue reading →

Looking forward to participating in the above international and interdisciplinary conference, School of Divinity, New College, Edinburgh, 2-3 September 2019. The description of the conference theme reads as follows: ‘Is populism on the rise? Across the political spectrum, populism is … Continue reading →

UPDATE: Beautiful place to give a guest talk this morning: The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Distress in Heiloo, North-Holland. The lecture was on “Natural Law, Human Rights, and Religious Freedom.” The audience consisted of a group of talented leaders … Continue reading →